It's in the blood: brothers set to be nation's political rivals

TOKYO: They are brothers in a famous political dynasty. One is known as "ET" or "the Alien’’. The other has been called ‘‘the Grim Reaper’’.

Today 128million people will wake up to the distinct possibility that their national politics will become a Hatoyama versus Hatoyama affair.

Yukio Hatoyama, 62, heads the Democratic Party of Japan and has ridden a massive swing to become prime minister-elect this morning.

Kunio Hatoyama, 60, is a leading figure in the Liberal Democratic Party and, will be a strong contender to replace the Prime Minister, Taro Aso, as LDP leader.

Politics is in their blood. Their great-grandfather was speaker of the Diet. Their grandfather was prime minister in 1954-56. Their father was a foreign minister.

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They are perhaps the richest men in Japanese politics. Their mother, Yasuko Hatoyama, is daughter of Shojiro Ishibashi, founder of Bridgestone Tyres, and part-heiress to his fortune.

Kunio was always the one everyone tipped to follow the family political heritage. After graduating from Tokyo University’s law school, he went straight to work for the LDP faction leader Kakuei Tanaka.

Yukio was more academic. He went to Stanford University in California, coming back with a PhD in engineering, initially working as a university lecturer. However, in 1986 he was persuaded to take over his father’s old constituency in the northern city of Sapporo.

In 1993, when the LDP lost power for 10 months, the two brothers left. In 1996 they joined up to form what is now the DJP. Yukio remained and became party leader in April. Kunio returned to the LDP and held several ministries until June.

Yukio is often known as ‘‘ET’’ or ‘‘the Alien’’ because of his slightly bulging eyes, and his awkward public manner.

"He is charming and witty in personal contact, but so stiff in front of the cameras,’’ says Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian politics at Temple University in Tokyo.

His campaign has ridden more on negative feelings towards the LDP than strong trust in the DPJ’s policies or preference for him as leader.

In recent months Yukio has tried to please all sides. In an article in he criticised ‘‘US-led market fundamentalism’’, but his party has backed opening Japan’s markets through free-trade accords – at least until it met stiff opposition from farm lobbies.

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Kunio, meanwhile, became noted as a tough-minded justice minister in 2007-08 when he issued 13 execution orders in 10 months for prisoners on death row. Some of the media started calling him ‘‘the Grim Reaper’’.

He was more widely applauded in June when he opposed the reappointment of the chief of the post office, one of the world’s biggest savings institutions, which is being gradually privatised, in protest at plans to sell the post office holiday resort chain to a private-sector buyer at a throwaway price.